The
idea of the western frontier and of the type of person who could live there
has long been a part of American identity. Benjamin Franklin, the frontier philosopher,
fascinated French intellectuals in the late 18th century. In the following century,
Americans migrated from the east coast into Kentucky and other lands to the
west. The celebrated explorer Daniel Boone led many of these expeditions. In
the late 1820s, Davy Crockett was elected to Congress from Tennessee. He moved
on to Texas and died defending the Alamo.

The
westward migration continued after the U.S. Civil War as Americans of European
descent settled territories on the far side of the Mississippi river. The romance
of the American west became a theme of popular entertainment. In 1893, Frederick
Jackson Turner delivered an address at a gathering of historians in Chicago
titled The Significance of the Frontier in American History. The
frontier, he said, was a primary determinant of the American character and experience.
By this time, however, there was no more frontier remaining to be
explored. Americans had settled all the lands extending to the Pacific.

As American
intellectuals became self-conscious concerning their frontier heritage, a small
group led by Theodore Roosevelt, the future President, established the Boone
and Crockett Club. The club was founded in 1887 to promote the manly virtues
of hunting. Both Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett were known as fearless hunters
who were at home in the forest. Regular members of this club had to be recommended
by a member and had to have killed at least one large animal with a rifle. Associate
members could recommend themselves and need not have demonstrated their hunting
skills.

Membership
in this organization was quite small. There were 24 members when the club was
established in 1887 and only 200 in 1910. Despite its western orientation, most
members came from large eastern cities such as Boston and New York. The Boone
and Crockett Club provided a network among the nations elite. Besides
Theodore Roosevelt, its members included such persons as Gifford Pinchot, first
head of the U.S. Forestry Service; William Tecumseh Sherman; Elihu Root, a politician
and lawyer; Dean Sage, the lumber magnate; Aldo Leopold, the ecologist; Owen
Wister, the novelist; J. Pierpont Morgan, Jr.; Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge; and others
prominent in politics or corporate life.

From
the network of persons involved in the Boone and Crockett Club came much of
the leadership behind the early conservation movement. Pinchot and Roosevelt
were obviously leaders, but so were many others. This organization takes credit
for such environmental accomplishments as the protection of Yellowstone,
Glacier, and Denali National Parks; the foundation of the National Forest, National
Park Service, and National Wildlife Refuge System; the passing of the Pittman-Robertson
and Lacey Acts, and the establishment of the Federal Duck Stamp Act.

But
there was more to the Boone and Crockett Club than environmental protection.
Its members were also concerned with American identity. In the late 19th Century,
as the American frontier was vanishing, the social elite in the United States
began to worry that this might pose a threat to the American character. Fewer
among the young generation had any immediate experience of the wilderness. Cut
off from this part of their national heritage, Americans were becoming soft.
The way to revive the self-reliant American spirit was to promote hunting and
conservation. The inspiration behind a sportsman club had as much to do with
moral regeneration as with the thrill of shooting game animals.

Club
leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt also promoted collegiate football. This was
a vigorous and manly sport which would foster the rugged qualities of personality
then being eroded. In particular, Casper Whitney made a contribution to this
sport. The feeling was that the average American male was becoming over
civilized and needed to become reacquainted with his rough and savage
nature. City boys needed to learn about life in the country. They needed to
take up a rifle and shoot game as their hardy forbearers had done or participate
in a sport such as football that preserved an element of brutality.

Adding
to this concern was the fact that immigrants were pouring into the United States,
especially from southern Europe. These types of people seemed to threaten the
American character. The response was both to try to limit legal immigration
and to Americanize the immigrants. One of the Boone and Crockett members, Madison
Grant, was a leader of anti-immigrant efforts. The American Eugenics Society
also came out of this movement.

Club
members thought of themselves as social and political reformers and progressives
but today they are seen as part of a WASP elite. Disproportionately influential
in politics, they believed in technocratic solutions to societys problems.
Like Plato, they thought that experts should run the country pursuing a good
which they as an educated elite uniquely recognized and understood.

Today,
the Boone and Crockett Club has abandoned that kind of agenda. Some might say
that the elitist membership has lost its nerve. In fact, the Boone and Crockett
Club is now an organization narrowly focused upon hunting, best known for its
system of measuring game animals and awarding a B&C score. The
club has also issued a Fair Chase Statement as an ethic for hunters
and worked for the elimination of industrial hunting, creation of wildlife
reserves and conservation-minded regulation of hunting generally.

The
broader aims of the Boone and Crockett Club were revealed in a talk given by
John Binkley, a government lawyer with ties to the University of Maryland, at
the 2007 annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians (OAH) in
Minneapolis. The talk which followed Binkleys was given on behalf of a
University of Missouri professor, Sandra Rubinstein Peterson. It concerned an
annual essay contest sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women in the
1920s.

While
the two groups (the B&C Club and the National Council) comprised a different
type of membership, their objectives were surprisingly similar. The Jewish women,
too, were concerned with promoting American identity. In this case, the impetus
for their essay contest was the fact that large numbers of Jews were migrating
to the United States from Russia, Poland, and other places in eastern Europe.
Some of them had customs and modes of physical appearance that seemed strange
to many Americans.

The
women who sponsored the contest were mainly Jews of German origin who had been
in the United States for some time. Their purpose was to promote the idea that
one could be both a good Jew and a good American. This
message was directed both at the American public and the newly arrived immigrants.
The essay contest encouraged these immigrants to write on such subjects as why
I want to become an American citizen. The winning answers suggested such
motives as appreciating the superior opportunities for education in America,
wanting to raise their children to fit into American society, and appreciating
the U.S. government and its legacy of justice and freedom.

The
presenter was honest enough to point out that some of the essays probably reflected
a conscious attempt to please the contest judges. However, the themes were illustrative
of real sentiments felt among these newcomers from eastern Europe. The value
placed on education was real. So was the desire to assimilate successfully in
American society. There was a desire that these immigrants might exhibit the
best of both the old and new worlds - the European legacy of honoring their
parents and retaining their ancestral religion, on one hand; and adopting American
standards of personal cleanliness and taking advantage of expanded opportunities
in America, on the other.

And
so it would seem that a hundred years ago, Americans of various backgrounds
took their identity seriously. They thought about it, created organizations,
and undertook essay contests to promote what they saw would strengthen that
common identity. The same concerns exist today, but in a different form and
direction.